Letters from readers: Ashamed to be a Democrat

Friday

Sep 28, 2012 at 4:53 PM

THE WELFARE STATE

Wake up, votersI worked in downtown Jacksonville with homeless and nearly homeless people at Catholic Charities and Sulzbacher.

I walked the streets in the annual Homeless Census and Survey. What I saw were generations of strong, healthy young people who never knew the pride in a job well done or the satisfaction of hard work and sacrifice.

These young people learned only one thing: how to qualify for the check. Welfare is now a right of passage and not something to be overcome.

We the people have perpetuated this in our zeal to alleviate the plight of the poor. Instead, we have stolen from them the great American dream - that this is the land of opportunity for all who choose to work hard and sacrifice.

Just ask our Jaguars owner.

He knew and he overcame with hard work and determination. Why do either if the check is in the mail?

Jeanette Ghioto,

St. Johns

FORMER DEMOCRAT

Ashamed to admit itThis administration and the Democratic Congress have made me ashamed to admit I was a Democrat for 40-plus years.

President Barack Obama, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Harry Reid and the 76 Democrats in the progressive caucus convinced me it was time to change my political party affiliation.

I have followed in detail the actions by this administration, the executive orders, the EPA regulations and the Energy Department's bad investments in renewable energy companies.

I'm aware of the 30-plus bills generated by the House that weren't allowed by the Democratic Senate majority leader to reach the Senate floor for a vote.

When the Senate shut down to go home to campaign, Obama couldn't blame George W. Bush, so he blamed the Republicans for not getting anything done.

I watched the fiasco at the Democratic Convention that attempted to get a majority voice vote to include God and Jerusalem in their platform.

I would hope this display of godlessness is not representative of the majority of those in the Democratic Party.

I hope after serious consideration of the presidential candidates, all voters will do as I have for the past 53 years - vote for the candidate who can do the best job regardless of the party line.

Del Strode,

Neptune Beach

SUPPORTING OBAMA

Watch election dayIt has been accepted that President Barack Obama will be seen as so much red meat by Republicans seeking his seat.

However, letters have turned mostly hard right of late.

We still have a Democratic Party in our city that knows that Obama fights hard for seniors and middle-class voters who are waiting for a chance to be heard and vote.

We may not see our unrecognized support daily in the paper, but you will see us in November!

The president draws huge crowds at appearances and reminds us that he fights for lower college loan payments and strong support for our earned Medicare and military benefits.

He has been undercut by bankers on housing cost reform and small business loans. But he is fighting for a second term to finish the job.

It took eight years to mess up these entitlements by tax-cutting right-wingers, but he deserves a final term to fix it.

So long live the Democratic president who will push the sons and daughters of Richie Rich to pay their original share of taxes or move to the havens they create offshore.

Robert A. Taylor,

Jacksonville

AMERICA'S MORALS

Going in declineAt two recent Democratic National Conventions, we have witnessed God and the Boy Scouts of America being booed and abortion and homosexual marriage applauded. There is something wrong with that picture!

Both Alexander Solzhenitsyn and John Paul II warned against our spiritual deterioration.

Under our secular materialism, we expect everything including charity, education and health care from government to replace God and then are horrified with the price tags.

The politicians of both parties dangle them in front of us as a road to spiritual happiness, but that road is the one to hell.

We are materially blessed and spiritually impoverished. Both parties have acquiesced. Government can never replace God try though it might.

We have struck our Faustian bargain, and the chickens are coming home to roost.

The problem is if you look closely, those chickens are actually vultures.

Roderick T. Beaman,

Jacksonville

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